How Ukraine’s Kursk operation challenges non-western countries to come out

A Russian T-90M tank captured by the soldiers of the 80th Air Assault Brigade. Photo: Roman Pilipey / wikmedie.org

Ukraine’s, so far, unexpectedly successful and deep incursion into Russian state territory since August 6th 2024 has changed the conversation about the Russo-Ukrainian War. The most important international impact that the Ukrainian surprise action may eventually have is that on officially neutral non-western countries such as China, India or Brazil. The West was and will be supportive of Ukraine – irrespective of the Kursk operation and its outcome. In contrast, a prolonged Ukrainian occupation of legitimate Russian state territory introduces a new dimension into non-western approaches to the war.

The Ukrainian offensive, if not reversed soon and fully by Moscow, changes Kyiv’s position and leverage in hypothetical negotiations which have been officially promoted by many third-party actors since the war’s start in 2014. So far, Kyiv has had to rely solely on moral and legal arguments, referring to the rules-based world order, in its communication with foreign partners. Now, in contrast, a less normatively driven, more transactional and simpler “land for land” deal between Russia and Ukraine has become theoretically feasible.

Ukrainian-Russian pre-Kursk negotiations

The pre-Kursk military-political constellation repeatedly led to highly unfavourable negotiation formats and ceasefire agreements for Kyiv – whether in bi- or multilateral settings. The 2014 Minsk-I and 2015 Minsk-II Accords signed by Kyiv at gunpoint, as well as the following talks, happened largely under the unofficial motto of “peace in exchange for sovereignty”. The Minsk agreements, to be sure, foresaw that Kyiv could have indeed got a settlement for mainland Ukraine and eventually resumed control over the de facto Russia-occupied parts of the Donets Basin (Donbas). Yet, this would have been, under the unjust Minsk deals, only possible if Kyiv had allowed Moscow’s local proxies in eastern Ukraine to become legitimate players within the Ukrainian polity.

The Kremlin’s 2014-2021 instrument, foreseen in the two unequal Minsk Accords, for implementing this neo-colonial scheme to make Ukraine submit once more were pseudo-elections in the Donbas. Kyiv was supposed to conduct local and regional polls in eastern Ukrainian territories which were and would remain, during the voting procedure, under the effective control of Moscow. Obviously, such a spectacle would have been manipulated by the Kremlin in similar ways in which Russian “elections” are operated at home. Ukraine’s sovereignty would have been limited by Russian proxies installed as veto players in Kyiv and the Donbas. Meanwhile, the annexed Crimean Peninsula was kept altogether out of the Minsk discussions.

The 2022 Istanbul talks occurred under the unofficial motto of “peace in exchange for security”. This meant that Moscow was only ready to end the so-called “special military operation” it had started in Ukraine on February 24th 2022, if Kyiv were to limit its military defensibility and multilateral integration. The Kremlin’s obvious intention was to fundamentally weaken the Ukrainian state’s national security, isolate it from its foreign partners, and keep it vulnerable. The draft Istanbul agreement foresaw that, although security guarantees would have been given to Ukraine, Russia would retain a veto power enabling it to block international help to Ukraine. As a result, Ukraine would have become either a new post-war Finland, a satellite state akin to the Soviet bloc’s “people’s republics”, or a second Belarus. Above all, it would have been easy prey in case of a repeat Russian invasion. The failure of the Istanbul talks led to Russia’s illegal annexations of four additional south-eastern Ukrainian regions in September 2022.

In the next stage, Russia switched to an even more legally nihilistic “peace in exchange for land” strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine. According to a recently circulated Kremlin settlement proposal, Ukraine would have to not only limit its sovereignty but also agree to Russia’s annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories. Moreover, the Kremlin demanded that Kyiv hand over to Moscow the non-occupied parts of the four Russia-annexed Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The Kremlin has officially and unofficially warned that the alternative to this proposal is Russia’s continuation of its genocidal war until Ukraine’s full annihilation – whether with or without weapons of mass destruction.

The approaching Minsk-III

These Russian approaches have, for ten years, been continuously promoted by the Kremlin in various mass media, public fora and international organizations. As a result, they have been taken up implicitly or even explicitly by many third parties. The supporters of Russian legal and normative nihilism vis-à-vis Ukraine range from western pacifist groups and self-professed “realists” to the international radical right, as well as various representatives of the so-called Global South.

With every year that Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian lands has been continuing and expanding since 2014, the idea of, at least, some Ukrainian ceding of territory and/or sovereignty has become more popular across the world. To be sure, earlier concessions made by Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine in the past have not led to these countries’ restoration of control over their state territories, as agreed upon in writing with Russia. Nor did these past deals between Moscow and its former colonies lead to peace in Europe. Nevertheless, many if not most western and non-western political and intellectual elites saw Ukrainian “compromises” as part of the road to end the war and bring about a lasting settlement.

As Russia had certain military success in eastern Ukraine in 2024, a Minsk-III deal with new limitations on Ukrainian territorial integrity and political independence was looming on the horizon. This happened against the backdrop of continuing international ignorance about Russia’s irredentism in the past, as well as naivety concerning the future of Russian imperialism. Many observers believe until today that throwing – after Transnistria, Abkhazia, “South Ossetia”, Crimea and parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions – yet another piece of land into the Russian crocodile’s mouth will finally make the incomprehensible reptile full.

Reformatting the war’s perception

Since August 6th, Kyiv has been trying to change this conversation by way of creating entirely new facts on the ground. With its Kursk operation, Ukraine wants to get away from the dubious “sovereignty/security/land for peace” deals to a more intuitive swap of territory. According to this idea, Ukraine is ready to return its now captured and legitimately Russian lands in exchange for Moscow’s withdrawal from the Ukrainian territories it has occupied since 2014.

This puts Putin in a difficult situation. On the one hand, Moscow’s continued loss of control over legitimate Russian state territory is now and will as long as it lasts be an enormous embarrassment for the Kremlin. On the other hand, the annexed east and south Ukrainian lands are, according to the Russian Constitution revised in 2014 and 2022, now official property of Russia too.

For most of the Russian elite and population, a restoration of Moscow’s full control over Russia’s own geographical terrain is more important than a permanent occupation of illegally acquired lands that the rest of the world regards as Ukrainian anyway. The annexed territories’ integration into the Russian state and economy, moreover, is costly and will remain so in the future. The illegal annexations of Ukrainian regions will continue to hamper the development of Russia by draining its resources and keeping western sanctions intact.

The non-western factor

The new Ukrainian strategy since August 6th could provide an additional avenue of influence not only for doves in the Russian leadership, but also for certain partners of Russia on the international scene – above all for China. Moderates in Russia’s government and in cabinets of foreign countries interested in an end to the war can now argue that the Ukrainian annexations should be reversed in exchange for the restoration of Russia’s territorial integrity. The idea of such a “land-for-land” deal will become more popular with every additional week that Ukraine can hold its captured territories in Russia. At least, there will be increasing pressure on Putin to finally return the lost lands under Moscow’s control – whether by military or diplomatic means.

If Russia cannot reverse the Ukrainian incursion with conventional arms, to be sure, it could try to do so by deploying nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. Such a dire escalation would, however, reverberate throughout the international community, and fundamentally change the war’s nature. The eventual outcome of the 2022 “special military operation” would become entirely unpredictable not only for Kyiv, but also for Moscow. Even such Russian partners as China and India may reposition themselves vis-à-vis an unpredictable Moscow – a development that could spell disaster for the Russian economy.

For Putin’s regime, either scenario – continued humiliation in Kursk or hazardous nuclear escalation – are risky paths. They may also be seen as undesirable in Beijing as well as other non-western capitals. Against this backdrop, a “land for land” deal – currently rejected by Moscow – could become salient. If Ukraine’s capture of Russian territories continues, a diplomatic solution could become an increasingly preferable outcome not only for parts of the Russian elite but also foreign governments.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, a number of officially neutral nations around the world have been advocating for an immediate and unconditioned end to the fighting and subsequent negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. For instance, China’s 12-point peace plan of February 2023 mentions a ceasefire and a “start of peace talks” in points four and five. The joint Brazilian-Chinese six-point peace plan of May 2024 suggests among others that “[a]ll parties should create conditions for the resumption of direct dialogue and push for the deescalation of the situation until the realization of a comprehensive ceasefire. China and Brazil support an international peace conference held at a proper time that is recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans.”

In late September 2024, under China’s leadership, a so-called “Friends for Peace” group on the Russo-Ukrainian War was established at the last session of the UN General Assembly. The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced, in relation to this, that “China hopes that the parties involved will consider resuming peace talks at an appropriate time, meet each other halfway in their dialogue, and seek common ground while shelving differences in their negotiations, fairly discuss all peace plans, and promote the establishment of a new security architecture.” The main question is whether the members of the “Friends for Peace” group or other non-western countries officially neutral in the war will – by their deeds and not only their words – become supporters of a Russo-Ukrainian just peace rather than a Russian peace of victory (Siegfrieden) over Ukraine.

Conflicting interests

Until recently, various non-western peace plans and similar proposals implied more or less far-reaching Ukrainian satisfaction with Russia’s territorial and political appetite. Since early August 2024, however, Ukraine has, with its capture of Russian state territory, supplied the basis for a transactional agreement instead of the hitherto suggested unjust peace, between the two states. The million dollar question is now whether and how officially pro-truce, pro-negotiation and pro-peace non-western countries, above all China, will react to and act on this novel situation.

To be sure, Vladimir Putin and other representatives of the Russian regime have made clear that Ukraine’s incursion into Russia has made negotiations impossible. This shift in the Kremlin’s ten-year public advocacy of Russo-Ukrainian peace talks is of little surprise. In the current situation, a ceasefire does not any longer imply a de facto Ukrainian capitulation under the guise of diplomatic settlement. Now, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would make real sense, as both countries have territories to gain and lose. Thereby, peace talks have, however, also lost their function for the Kremlin. Moscow’s, so far, only envisaged way to end the war is via a military or diplomatic victory over Kyiv – and not through a mutually acceptable settlement.

Yet, Russia is economically and technologically dependent on foreign support, most of all on China’s. Some of Russia’s crucial political and economic allies like North Korea, Iran or Syria are, to be sure, unequivocally interested in Moscow’s full victory, and will support the Russian aggression as far as they can. Other countries more or less friendly to Russia including China, India or Brazil may, in contrast, possess conflicting internal and foreign interests in their governments, parliaments, economies and societies. Some domestic camps may be favouring a continuation of the war and Russian victory, while others might prefer the achievement of a sooner rather than later and just rather than unequal peace.

As is well known, Beijing has so far heftily profited from the Russo-Ukrainian War, both economically and geopolitically. The war has created many new business opportunities for China and other countries around the world not participating in the western sanctions regime against Russia. Beijing has not only acquired in Moscow a valuable junior partner in its geopolitical confrontation with Washington. Since February 2022, the Russo-Ukrainian War has been distracting the attention of the United States and entire West from the Indo-Pacific realm, as well as diverting more and more western financial, military and other resources to Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the war’s continuation is generating, with every additional month, more risks and after-effects not only for the West. Some of the transcontinental repercussions of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and Moscow’s intensifying non-kinetic confrontation with the West may be neither in the economic nor in the political interests of China and other profit-seeking bystanders.

Nuclear scenarios

For instance, in late September 2024, Russian President Putin indicated plans for a loosening of restrictions on the use of nuclear weapons in the future wording of Russia’s military doctrine. Putin’s announcement – even if indeed implemented in official Russian documents – as well as other similar recent signals from Moscow may, to be sure, be merely a continuation of the Kremlin’s nuclear bluffing that had already begun in connection with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Nevertheless, Russia’s ever more aggressive war in Ukraine, and Putin and his entourage’s continued threats of nuclear escalation in Ukraine and further west, are already eroding the normative as well as psychological foundations of the worldwide non-proliferation regime.

As the war continues, the likelihood increases, moreover, that an escalation with grave implications not only for Eastern Europe but also for the wider world could happen. Harvard’s nuclear historian Mariana Budjeryn has recently pointed out that a Russia that is winning in Ukraine may actually be more likely to use nuclear weapons to complete its victory than a Russian Federation that is losing its war against the Ukrainian state. Such Russian behaviour would somewhat follow the pattern of the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons so far, i.e. America’s use against Japan in August 1945. In the worst case, the Kremlin’s continuous public intimidation of western countries supporting Ukraine with – what is either openly labelled as or implicitly amounts to – World War III could, even if not intended, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. One wonders whether China, Brazil or India are interested in such a development.

A very different scenario of instability is also looming. The war could end with Russia’s crushing military defeat in Ukraine. This, in turn, could result not only in a regime change in Moscow but also in a partial or even full break-up of the Russian Federation into several smaller states. The second prospect is a possible outcome proposed recently by, among others, one of the most prominent Russian contemporary historians – Professor Alexander Etkind, formerly at the University of Cambridge and now at the Central European University in Vienna. Etkind compares the actions of late Austria-Hungary with Russia’s behaviour 100 years later. In 1914, the Habsburg dual monarchy had paradoxically started a world war that, in 1918, eventually broke up the Austro-Hungarian land empire. In 2014, the Russian Federation started the Russo-Ukrainian War which may eventually fracture Moscow’s post-Soviet rump empire.

Some observers suspect that this scenario may be one of the reasons why Beijing is cynically fueling the Russo-Ukrainian War through intensified economic cooperation with Moscow since 2022. The longer the war lasts, such would be China’s logic, the more likely a break-up of the Russian Federation and the re-opening of territorial issues along its current legitimate border becomes. This concerns not least those modern Russian and formerly Chinese territories in the Far East that the tsarist empire gained from the Qing Dynasty in the so-called “unequal treaties” of the 19th century, including in the 1858 Treaty of Aygun and 1860 First Convention of Peking. The territories transferred in these acts are today generally referred to as “Outer Manchuria” and have also the informal label of “Green Ukraine” in view of the Ukrainian settlers who moved there after the Chinese area had been annexed to the late Romanov empire. In September 2024, the president of the Republic of China or Taiwan, William Lai, suggested to the People’s Republic that, if it is interested in irredentism, then this should above all concern those north-eastern Chinese territories that had been lost to Russia during China’s so-called “century of humiliation”.

If Beijing is indeed secretly promoting a corrosion of the Russian state through the continuation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, this would constitute a tricky strategy, however. It will not only create a zone of instability north of China. If Russia indeed disintegrates as a result of the war, some of its north Asian successor countries emerging out of the current pseudo-federation could become nuclear weapon states. Whether Russian atomic warheads end up in one or in several of the successor states of the current Russian Federation will, perhaps, be insubstantial. Most of the post-Russian states, statelets and territories will be mainly populated by ethnic Russians. Despite breaking away from each other, they may thus still feel sufficient transborder solidarity to support one another against non-Russian irredentism – including that of China. 

Concluding remarks

Whether Russia fully wins or spectacularly loses in its war against Ukraine, the international repercussions of either scenario will be considerable. A full Russian victory would fully unsettle the UN system as well as nuclear non-proliferation regime. It might even involve, as Budjeryn indicated in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the explosion of one or more nuclear warheads.

If Russia loses in a humiliating way in Ukraine, the resulting political instability in Moscow will have wider repercussions. In one way or another, it may spill over into the realm of international security. The Russo-Ukrainian War has created many political and economic opportunities for China and the Global South. But its negative after-effects and global risks are also accumulating not only for Ukraine and the West, but also beyond.

The coming weeks and months will show the strength of the either pacifist or hawkish, and risk-prone or risk-averse, inclinations present in various relevant non-western nations. Will Beijing and/or other powerful non-western capitals be willing and able to seize the opportunity to persuade Moscow to agree to a ceasefire along the entire frontline, i.e. within Russia too? Are countries like China, India and Brazil strongly enough interested in peace to use their international clout to force Russia into serious negotiations?

Will the major non-western countries recognize their common interest with the West in a just peace between Ukraine and Russia, as well as in not allowing a Ukrainian capitulation that the Kremlin is aiming for? Will Beijing and other non-western countries be willing and able to force the Kremlin to leave the war via an off-ramp rather than a “victory avenue”? The ambivalent situation that Ukraine has created, with its incursion into the Kursk region since early August 2024, could be the last chance to prevent further escalation and the wider spread of the war beyond the Russo-Ukrainian front line.

Dr. Andreas Umland is an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for East European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI).

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Kursk, Minsk agreement, Russian invasion of Ukraine, security, Ukraine